


trees

by buries



Series: [challenge] fandomweekly fills [17]
Category: The Haunting of Bly Manor (TV)
Genre: Closure, Community: fandomweekly, Female Friendship, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Women Being Awesome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-18 18:36:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28871694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buries/pseuds/buries
Summary: Rebecca tries to help Hannah come to terms with the well.
Relationships: Hannah Grose & Rebecca Jessel
Series: [challenge] fandomweekly fills [17]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1909810
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8
Collections: FandomWeekly (2019-2020) Writing Challenge on Dreamwidth





	trees

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this for fandomweekly's #74 "Into the Forest" and "Twinkle twinkle" aka stars prompts. It came third in the challenge.
> 
> This does deal with traumatic deaths experienced by these two awesome women. All I wanted was more Hannah and Rebecca scenes since their moment in the chapel was so great and yet not enough, so I wrote this.
> 
> This is unbeta'd, so all mistakes are mine.

Hannah stood on the boundary of Bly Manor, her legs shaking and her feet feeling like lead. She peered out at the cluster of trees surrounding the manor and the winding dirt road that would take her to her home. Her hands balled into fists as she stood on the edge, throat tight and her dead heart thumping wildly in her chest.

The manor was dark, coated in the shawl of night, but those cluster of trees before her seemed so bright and promising. Perhaps if she stepped a foot over the boundary, this time, she wouldn’t find herself disoriented outside of that bloody well.

Stones scuffled and leaves snapped strangely behind her. She tugged in a breath and swallowed thickly, and didn’t once turn to look at the woman who had approached.

"You can’t leave," Rebecca said quietly. She gazed out at the warm cluster of brightly lit trees outlining the manor. Her hands remained by her sides as she stood in her black dress. Her shoulders were hunched while Hannah’s tensed. "You know that."

Inhaling deeply through her nose, Hannah cleared her throat. "Yes," she said quite tersely. "I know that."

"And yet you stand here," Rebecca said, furrowing her brow as she peered up at her. Even in death, her gaze was piercing, intuitive and disarming. "Why?"

Hannah pressed her lips together and tried to clear the cobwebs of tension cluttering her throat. "I like to look at the trees."

Rebecca chuckled low in her throat. "No," she said, shaking her head. She smiled kindly, although Hannah didn’t think it to be kind at all. "You stand here hoping that one day, you’ll be able to leave. But you can’t."

Hannah traced her tongue along her teeth and nodded. "I know," she admitted quietly. "But I can still hope, can’t I?"

Rebecca’s hands were behind her back as she peered up at the sky. Despite how the trees seemed to be shining as bright as daylight, the patchwork of night was opaque and intensely overwhelming. It showed a world that was beyond Bly, a universe that she would never be able to reach again.

Hannah refused to look up.

"The stars are much prettier now," Rebecca sighed wistfully. "I never had any appreciation for them when I was alive."

Hannah kept her gaze ahead on the long winding dirt road. She disliked how it began to quickly shroud itself in darkness, draping the middle of the night across its shoulders. 

Rebecca shifted on her feet, stones shuffling under her toe. "You don’t have to travel into the forest alone, Hannah," she said. "I can be there for you."

When she licked at her bottom lip, Hannah let out a short, terrifying sound that was half-cry, half-scream. She pressed her lips together tightly to trap it within its cage and tried to swallow it down, although it lingered at the back of her teeth.

"I can be there for you," Rebecca said again. "We can go to the well together."

Hannah glanced down, seeing the sharp, deserted road become blurred in her vision. Her hands were balled into fists by her side until she felt Rebecca’s hand flutter out to capture her fist in her palm.

"I won’t leave you like he left me," Rebecca continued, tone sharp and determined. 

Hannah kept her gaze ahead yet unfurled her fingers and desperately reached out to grasp Rebecca’s hand.

"I don’t want to be alone," Hannah said, lip quivering. Rebecca encased her hand with both of hers, smile warm like that of the sun. Hannah remained stubbornly in place, digging her heels into the dirt as she stared at the winding road. 

The walk through the cluster of trees and the woods of Bly Manor was long and quiet, but Rebecca never let go of her hand. Hannah’s face felt as tight as her throat as she kept her head tilted upward and her back as straight as possible. She didn’t want to look where she was going.

Approaching the well, she kept her gaze up at the clear night sky as Rebecca looked down at her broken and curved body lying in wait to be discovered within the well’s empty belly. Her hand gripped Rebecca’s impossibly tight. 

Hannah cleared her throat. "The stars are beautiful, aren’t they? I think I could look at them forever."

"One day you’ll need to look down," Rebecca said, her gaze on her profile. "You need to see the forest for the trees, Hannah. Being dead is hardly anything to run from."

"Perhaps we can let me run from it for a moment longer," she said, swallowing thickly. Her gaze never wavered from the night sky, her head tilted up defiantly as she refused to look down at the well at her feet. "I think I’d like that."

Rebecca nodded and quietly said, "Tomorrow, then."

Rebecca’s hand never pulled away from hers, fingers warm and solid. Hannah peered up at the stars and smiled, feeling them lift her far, far away from Bly Manor and it’s horrible, haunting secrets. She remained outside by the well, never once moving, until she disappeared behind her own door and tucked herself away into a warmer memory.

She decided she’ll see the forest for the trees tomorrow.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [tumblr.](http://finnicks.tumblr.com)


End file.
